1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc changer, and in particular to one that utilizes an elevating mechanism for controlling elevating and lowering of the selecting mechanism.
2. Prior Art
The optical recording/reproducing apparatus for reading optical discs is broadly used in the information industry and the consuming industry. The typical optical recording/reproducing apparatus comprise DVD players, VCD players, etc.
The conventional optical recording/reproducing apparatus is usually either a slot-loading type equipment or a tray-loading type equipment. No matter what type of the apparatus is, a common feature or, say, a common disadvantage is that the apparatus can only read one disc per one operation. Once that the user wants to change discs, he/she needs to retrieve one disc and reload the other one manually. However, in a disc changer with an interior reading device usually found in a public place, the aforesaid disadvantage is never seen.
Refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic view of a conventional disc changer 2. The disc changer 2 comprises a shell 4, a disc box 6 having a plurality of trays 602 for stacking discs vertically, a selecting mechanism 8 which can move vertically to pull out a particular disc in the disc box 6, an elevating mechanism 10 for elevating and lowering the selecting mechanism 8, a driving device 11 for driving the elevating mechanism 10, and a reading device 12 for reading data from the selected disc.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,705 and the U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,246 have disclosed part of key technology of the disc changer. However, both the aforesaid patents have a common difficulty in structuring. As shown in FIG. 1, part of the elevating mechanism 10 is connected to the selecting mechanism 8, but other parts of the elevating mechanism 10 are constructed to the shell. Furthermore, the driving device is mounted on the shell and the transmitting mechanism of the driving device is also pretty complicated. They are not only hard to assemble, but also easy to breakdown unexpectedly.